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- Nov 19, 2010
Or in Olympic skating.
Michelle Attends U.S. State Dinner for China President Hu Jintao
- Thread starter demarinis5
- Start date
Or in Olympic skating.
Back to the original topic of Michelle's possible new career path, I happened to come across the speeches of several people at the memorial service for American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who collapsed and died suddenly on the job some weeks ago. Because he worked closely with both Clintons (Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was his current boss, and he served in Bill Clinton's administration, especially in helping to resolve war in the Balkans), both of them spoke at his service. Bill Clinton said something that really stays with me. He said that diplomacy saves lives. He pointed out that there are people walking around on the planet today, and their children, because of how Richard Holbrooke lived his life. We all get jaded because things so often don't work in the world, but it's good to remember that when diplomacy is done right, it can change and even save people's lives. If Michelle goes in to such a career and is able to accomplish something, it will be a great service to her country, and to other people as well.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
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- Jun 27, 2003
Mathman I just discovered that if you google usa figure skating nationals the 4th result is the Michelle Kwan wikipediaHughes who?
not surprising as Sarah was never a national champion.
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- Jun 3, 2008
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- Jun 27, 2003
why you downplay my discovery of the day?
because as a nonkwan I must downplay all that she is/does/can be
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- Jul 26, 2003
I think this is probably a good place to post a little interesting tidbit about some skaters of Chinese descent.
Patrick Chan, Nathan Chen, Lu Chen and Mervin Tran of Takahashi/Tran all have the same family name. Chan is Canotonese/Hongkong, Chen is Mandarin indicating origin of China and Taiwan, and Tran is how the same name is spelled in Vietnam and Cambodia. In Singapore and Malaysia, it will be Tan (from Hokien/Fujian).
Tran is a Canadian of Southeast Asian Chinese descent skating for Japan.
A little non skating anecdote: A few weeks ago, I got a late night phone call from a friend for help to call Beijing to save an oil deal worth possibly $1B because his local Chinese partner was drunk at the time. I didn't know if the family name of the person was the first or last as given but turned out he was in Hongkong so we spoke in Cantonese. His name was Choi. I figured he was not the right person to talk to and asked my friend for a real dicision maker and I was given a Mr. Tsai. I told my friend the two of them might be related as they had the same family name, one spelled HK way and one in Taiwan fashion. They were brothers. Heh.
Also, this name is spelled differently in China, Chai I think.
Part of the spelling differences are related to when the family emigrated outside of China. Depending on the prevalent translation, different English spelling resulted - i.e. Peking vs Bejing. I know 2 people who became friends because their teacher called role call on the 1st day of class. When she said Amy Wong, both of them raised their hands - one spells her last name Wong - the other Huang.